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Paging through the movie's press kit, I came across this quote attributed to Amy Jo Johnson, who plays Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger: " 'Mighty Morphin Power Rangers™: The Movie' is a mix between ' Star Wars' and ' The Wizard of Oz.' " I wonder if Amy Jo actually said "TM" when she was delivering that wonderfully fresh and spontaneous quote, which is so much more involved than anything she says in the movie.
A humorous way to make Things®© stand out is to add Random Trademark Symbols®© everywhere. May be used as a Social Commentary®© on our increasingly homogenised, commercialised World®©, but more often than not, done just because of the Rule Of Funny™. Can be used to passive-aggressively imply something exists only as a concept™; for example, some people refer to "Global Warming™".
For added Spice™, try adding Registered Trademark® and Copyright© Symbols®©™. ( This is not actually how copyright works™.)
Examples™:
Anime and Manga
- Hidamari Sketch commonly has the sound effects trademarked.
- In one episode of Sgt Frog, Fuyuki worries that Saburo might be an MIB. The Gag Dubtitles are quick to point out, "Fuyuki is using the generic 'Men in Black,' not the trademarked 'Men in Black™.'"
Comic Books
Fanfic
Film
- Guru Pitka of The Love Guru used these on advice-giving acronyms.
Literature
- Used a lot in the Thursday Next series, especially the Goliath™ Corporation ("for all you'll ever need™"), but also the Toast™ Marketing Board and others. In the Bookworld, there's the UltraWord™ story delivery system. (Earlier systems, such as BOOK 8.3 which the Bookworld returns to at the end of the novel, are not trademarked and are presumably open source).
- Dave Barry's book Dave Barry In Cyberspace features a Running Gag of referring to Microsoft's products (especially versions of Windows®©™) with trademark symbols after the names, including one long sequence in which other bizarre symbols are put after things, such as "Windows 95BILLGATESISAWIENER."
- Will Ferguson's Happiness™ is about a self-help book that actually works, turning people into happy zombies and making the publishing company so much money that they trademark the word "happiness".
- The novel Feed has Clouds™ and School™.
- One page at the end of the Principia Discordia uses a circled K (similar to that used to mark Kosher products, but in this case standing for 'Kallisti') followed by the phrase "All Rites Reversed", to indicate that it was being released into public domain.
- Which was the inspiration for acidhouse band The KLF (aka Kopyright Liberation Front, aka K Foundation, aka The JAMS) and some of their more controversial work.
- "The words ScreeWee (tm), Empire (tm) and Mankind (tm) are registered trademarks of Gobi Software, Tibet." — Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind
Live-Action TV
- On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Howard uses Google Street Views to find the location of the set of America's Next Top Model. He reacts, "God bless you, Google Street Views Registered Trademark!"
- The last line of Stephen Colbert's "Another Christmas Song" is "Copyright Stephen Colbert!"
- He occasionally adds "Trademark." after made-up words on The Colbert Report, with one note directed specifically at Fox News stating that he held the copyright on the phrase "No Fact Zone".
- A serious employment of Trade Snark from Countdown With Keith Olbermann - In one of his Special Comments, the host refers to the way the September 11 attacks are used as a fear-mongering tactic by politicians, to the point where it is nothing more than a product used to win votes. Throughout the comment, Olbermann drives it into our minds by referring to the attacks as "9/11(tm)" over and over.
- Jackson Stewart and Oliver Oken of Hannah Montana ended their (in)famous cheese jerky rap with "Sizzlin' Stewart & Smokin' Oken Enterprises. Patent pending." Also, Rico owns the North American rights to his catch phrases "Hey-O!" and "Muahahahaha!"
Music
- The Groovegrass Boyz, a country music/funk band, released Groovegrass® 101 featuring the Groovegrass Boyz™.
Professional Wrestling
- The WWF (WWE) No Mercy manual (and probably others) had a TM symbol for every
wrestler superstar mentioned in the opening blurb. As in: "Matt Hardy™ went on to fight Christian™..."
- "All World Wrestling Entertainment programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries."
- According to a minor wrestler just starting, the entire reason that Vince McMahon has them take face names: so he can own the name and persona.
- Of course, the memorable backfire is of Gangrel™, a trademark of White Wolf.
- I'd say it's more memorable that Hulk Hogan is used with permission from Marvel comics myself.
- It appears often in other materials; the Tabletop Game 'Know Your Role' also has scattered trademark symbols on various wrestlers. It's not omnipresent, but it's likely to show up when a group are listed.
- Hilariously the wrestler Steve Bordren actually owns the trademark for his ring name Sting. The musician of the same name has to pay Steve whenever he performs in the U.S.
Tabletop Games
- The old gamer legend that back in the day of their apparently short-lived Indiana Jones role-playing game, TSR (then-owners of D&D) actually claimed a trademark on the term "Nazi".
- Also used in Paranoia, with one secret society using "The Force is with us, Tee-Em" as part of its recognition symbol. And then there's the Semantics Control firms, which actively try to inflict this upon everyone in Alpha Complex (leading to much hilarity and no small number of weapons discharges).
- Is there anything in Paranoia that doesn't lead to weapons discharges?
- You lack the proper security clearance to access this information, Citizen. Unauthorized access to non-discharge actions is treason. Please report to the nearest Termination Centre immediately.
- ...This concept of things not leading to weapons discharges confuses and infuriates Friend Computer.
Video Games
- I'm O.K - A Murder Simulator had the final boss a giant (Mario) with a trademark symbol hanging in mid air next to him at all times.
- The Monkey Island games have them in the dialog text, but not the voice acting in the later games. Some characters seem to notice their presence even so; in Escape from Monkey Island, a lawyer complements Guybrush on "Nice use of the ™" in Melee Island™. Even Guybrush says the word "™" while he summons his wife Elaine to the Flotsam Island Courthouse in Tales Of Monkey Island.
- CCP hf is known for having patches that will be released "Soon™".
- Not just patches. Planetary interaction, atmospheric flight, walking in stations, and numerous other promised features have been coming Soon™ for years. Even admittedly unfinished COSMOS sites have agents handing you missions with the helpful and in-depth description of "Soon™".
- Soon™ shows up in other MMOs as well. Typical response to somebody asking when the next patch will come in World Of Warcraft forums is "Soon™", followed by another post explaining the terms of use of the "Soon" trademark.
- Hardcore™: We'll probably get modded for this.
- From a Have A Nice Death sequence in the VGA remake of Space Quest I:
Scott: Let's run that one again with the aid of our new How-He-Blew-It Cam (TM) and Chalkboard (TM). I have to say that carefully, Mark. Every time we mention something with a trademark or copyright, the lawyers come out to feed.
- Speaking of which, I dare you to find a single Sierra Golden-Age Adventure Game that DIDN'T have a 'something'™ in it...
- FREDDY'S™ COMING!
- The Nameless Mod: The subtitles for the speech of Goats shows that they trademarked slightly misspelled versions of every other word. The most important one is "Melk™", which they use as a drug for some reason.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner has Sbemailiarized Entertainment™ © ® LLC,,. Esq., which becomes Sbemailiarized Entertainment™ © ® LLC,,. GQ and Sbemailiarized Entertainment™ © ® LLC,,. FHM.
Web Comics
- On the website ryansheppard.com the main comic is known as TM(tm) being a parody of this trope even though there are no actual trademarks on the name but some are pending.
- The
faux legally binding copyright symbol on the bottom of the MS Paint Adventures home page.
- The "Technobabble Box™" series from The Way Of The Metagamer.
Web Original
- Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series™: "...with my all new DUEL DISK SYSTEM! ...Trademark".
- This bash.org quote.
- In AH Dot Com The Series, Thande's all-purpose suggestion to solve any problem is "Daring Commando Raid™"
- ScrewAttack's list of Worst Fighting Games Ever says "Batman (trademark) and Superman (trademark)" during Justice League Task Force.
- Charlie from Charlieissocoolike does this constantly regarding the phrase "What I decided to do." He pronounces the ™ Tee Em.
- This RPGnet forum post is possibly the Most Triumphant Example.
- Retarded Animal Babies blows this out the window in episode 3. Matt Groening says that he is here to prevent RAB from out-grossing his "vastly superior Simpsons©®™©®©©®©™™©©™™™™™™ movie. (Make sure subtitles are on.)"
- This exchange from Hellfire Commentaries' Sonic CD playthrough, describing the race against Metal Sonic:
Tom: And don't forget Robotnik is chasing you with a Death Laser™.
FTA: (laughs)
Tom: And if you get caught by that, the Death Laser—
FTA: ™.
Tom: —you will die.
FTA: ™.
Tom: Yes, I trademarked death, that's right.
Western Animation
Real Life
- "The expression 'Breakfast of Champions' is a registered trademark of General Mills, Inc. for use on a breakfast cereal product. The use of the identical expression as the title for Kurt Vonnegut's book is not intended to indicate an association with or sponsorship by General Mills, nor is it intended to disparage their fine products."
- In a dismaying example from Real Life, Barney's catchphrase. And the names of his friends. Super-dee-Duper™, Baby Bop™!
- Back when UNIX was first released as a commercial product in 1983, AT&T started insisting that people refer to it as "the UNIX(tm) Operating System" or something similar to that. People on Usenet almost immediately started referring to the OS as "UN*X" as a subtle Take That, and there was even one BSD-based product called "MT XINU" whose advertising included such things as a BSD-powered X-Wing rocketing away from an AT&T logo wreathed in flames. This became less popular after AT&T sold off the UNIX group in the mid-1990s.
- Ironically, during the late 1990s, the Open Source Unix clone Linux (you've heard of it I assume) ran into trademark trouble when a random troll named William Della Croce secured the trademark and attempted to shake down the community for usage rights. Della Croce disappeared back into the woodwork when the trademark was revoked and reassigned to Linus Torvalds himself. Around the same time, some people on Usenet and web forums started replacing "UN*X" with "*n?x", a filename pattern that matches both "Unix" and "Linux".
- Actually, you're required to write Linux® anyway. This fact is great for countertrolling Slashtards who can't help but reflexively type out "(TM) Micro$oft(TM) Whinedoze(TM)(TM)".
- Another Roger Ebert example, from his review of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen: "The dialog of the Autobots®, Decepticons® and Otherbots® is meaningless word flap."
- Numerous A-list porn stars have their names (or, more accurately, their stage names) trademarked. This is disconcerting enough, but particularly weird in the case of alt-porn star Stoya, whose stage name is no more than a clipped form of her real last name.
- Tell him that's silly to Harlan Ellison, who actually did register his name as a trademark.
- Real estate agents in the National Association of Realtors must be called REALTORS®. Yes, with the asscaps.
- The word spam only refers to unsolicited emails. In order for it to be the canned meat product, it must be SPAM®.
- Remember: This image has been manipulated by Adobe® Photoshop® software.
Tradesnark, Humorous, Things, Random, Trademark, Symbols, Commentary, Funny, World, Spice and Examples are all trademarks and/or registered trademarks of TropeCo/TropeCo. in the United States and/or other countries. All rights reserved.
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